


SIN | RICHARD HARROW

by manhattan_mari



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27067525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manhattan_mari/pseuds/manhattan_mari
Summary: richard harrow in chicago
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	SIN | RICHARD HARROW

**SPRING**

_He did not remember quite why he'd said it, but only that it felt right as it sputtered from his mouth as Emma looked peevish- not reluctant, but rather acrid- at his leaving: "You can't- or- dont. Need to protect me, Em."_

_"Oh, yes," she said, bite in her voice he was unaccustomed to having thrown at him, that settled in his heart and stayed there (but of course he was numb to it- he hardly knew_ why _it was- or should have been- so stinging-), "the war proved that, didn't it?"_

That had been weeks ago. Now, he sat in this wooden chair that was sticky with heat despite it only being spring, with a cool breeze fluttering through the curtians. Everything in this room seemed heavy- even the air thick- though that may have just been the pollen from the breeze. The sharp, bitter taste of pollen in the back of Richard's throat mingled with the similar one of dread. He didn't put his hand into his jacket, where his pistol was, for fear someone was watching him in a shadowed, dingy apartment like this (one wouldn't figure that the man behind that tightly closed door in front of him was paying nearly fifty dollars for someone to die).

The voices were low behind the door with a window in it but the pane was thick, warped glass; and Richard didn't bother himself to try to tangle words from each other, and attach them to men, and try to discern the meaning of them all. Then one demand, clear as day: "Where's the soldier?"

That was what he- Mr. Todds- called him. Richard hated the ring of it.

The door swung open and a hand beckoned him in. Richard stood and stepped inside. This room was much smaller than the one he'd been sitting in. It held a desk, and standing next to it Mr. Todds. Near the door, next to himself, a man Richard didn't know who was probably around his own age. Another man nodded to him and left.

"Harrow, right?" He spoke casually. No 'Mr.' (not that Richard deserved the title, anyway) or 'correct?' It was _Harrow, right?_

"Yes." He heard his voice shake with both disuse and nerves.

"You'll find Asher in his apartment at seven tomorrow evening. If _someone_ -" Mr. Todds glanced sideways at the young man, here; "-is mistaken, then you'll figure it out some other way."

"Mm. Alright."

Something must've shown on his face, because Todds tilted his head ever so slightly. "You've ever done this before?"

Richard cleared this throat, but was silent for a moment. "No," he finally said. He wanted to say something, anything to reassure the man that he could do this (couldn't he?), because he had killed plenty; but he was trying to speak around the quiet, persistent click in his throat. "But I- I-"

"I don't doubt you. Be careful." He said it almost kindly and Richard had a queer sense of peace for the most fleeting of moments. "And don't fuck up."

☆

"How do you do?" the landlady's daughter said as he walked into the small lobby of his apartment building. He gave a nod but she continued, "Mother's got something for you."

He blinked. "What?"

"Some package." She shrugged.

He nodded again. Stepping further in, toward the stairs to go up to his apartment, the landlady, Ms Turner, gave a shout from a closet. "Richard, hold on there."

He had not made for the stairs, only stood near them, but he looked up, startled anyway.

"Someone from Wisconsin sent this," she reached behind her desk and handed it to him.

"Mm." The small, thick package suddenly felt too heavy in his hand. "Thank you." She smiled very kindly and he went up to his apartment before tearing the string and paper, letting them fall to the table, having given way to a book in his hand. _The Woman in Black_. He flipped the cover open, finding a note slid there. He picked it up and turned it over, where it was scrawled on in ink, smudged:

_Richard,_

_Thought you might like this. It's a pretty good read. Anyway, I wanted to apologize for my shortness when you left. Thank you for sending me your address. You truly didn't have to, given the way I was. I do hope you're well._

_Emma_

She had never been very good at articulating her feelings, nor was she good at apologies, but he didn't mind. He placed the note in the middle of the book and walked over to the window, pulling the curtain back. The sunset cast glaring light into the room. He sat in a chair and began to read.

☆

_I_ _n war, killing was never sin. It was bravery, and any guilt you managed to snag, even after losing yourself to gunpowder and mud, could be chased down and desolved in whiskey, and drowned out with a joke from a friend at camp. What was the difference? Could he not, now, instead let the sounds of the city echo over that of a single shot?_

Lately, Richard hated rain- or walking it. He had no umbrella, and his cap shielded his face little. Walking only to enter a store or office with his glasses spotted with raindrops and no way to wipe them away, for that would mean taking the mask off, was dreadfully irritating. Now, though, as he walked very slowly down the street, for it was nearing seven, it was much more than irritating, blurring his vision. Say he missed, and Asher got him instead? He stepped to the side, under a small awning of a store and pulled his mask off, carefully wiping at the glass with his coat. It would be safer to have done it inside Asher's place, less witnesses, right?- he wasn't very sure how this worked- but the door was locked, as usual in a city. They had never locked their door in Wisconsin. He wondered about Asher. Did he live alone? Have anything valuable in that house? Did a wife live there? Perhaps his parents did. Richard thought about his own mother for a second. If she could see him now... _No-_ But who was to say she couldn't, in Heaven? _No._

Oh, was that him? Looked like it- Richard glanced around nervously. The street was empty. He swallowed apprehension. There was no turning back.

He slowly pulled his pistol from his coat and cocked it, hoping Asher wouldn't hear the noise, some yards away. Now maybe three.

Two.

One, and-

Asher had glanced his way, given him a polite nod. Richard returned it, his hand holding the gun remaining still.

He waited until he was some paces ahead of him, aimed silently.

Then a bang, and his body collapsed to the wet sidewalk, blood from his head now mingling with rain. Richard was supposed to run now. But he couldn't, shocked glue sticking his shoes to the ground.

He wished he could take it back, step back in time a few moments ago-

But the sound of a door opening and closing and a bewildered voice made him move. He bolted down the sidewalk, into an alley, down another street-

He stopped, half falling, half leaning over against a fence and trying to catch his breath and to stop his legs from giving out from under him. His hands shook but they were numb. His gut twisted. A harsh cry tore itself from his mangled throat. He tried to get in a ragged breath but it caught and he vomited painfully over the fence into a bush. (He felt very sorry for the owners of the apartment who would eventually open the window only for the scent of heated, stale sick to greet them.) Eventually he straightened. The rain had slowed to a drizzle now. He looked up to the sky, still clouded and dark, as though fretful; or, he thought in his mournful state, forboding.

☆

**WINTER**

Seasons did not seem to change. What was the point in acknowledging them at all, if he was so wrapped in a persistent melancholy? It did not matter to Richard whether it was seventy degrees or two; whether the sun beat down and hummed, or was skewed with thick clouds.

He read, and found little solace in the words as he once did. It dismayed him only slightly. He may as well had bought the books himself for little he usually thought of his family, but he read every note Emma had slipped into the cover, and it only occurred to him that it was late December when one wished him a Merry Christmas.

He bought a tiny tree in a pot from an old man on the corner of Kenwood and 44th, and he placed it on his windowsill. He thought it looked rather plain, so he gave it some tinsel and let himself wonder what his family was doing. Emma had always been a better baker than him, and she would give cookies to the few neighbors (if one could call living in the same general vincinity neighbors) they had. Sampson liked to beg her for pieces, and Richard felt himself smile a little, felt his heart warm for it to be extinguished again.

It was also at this time when someone had heard, by muttered, hushed, innuendo'ed word of mouth, of the soldier hitman with a steady hand and half a face; truly, who had a short lived career of only two hits and Richard was greeted one evening to a letter asking for a third. After short debate with himself he agreed.

☆

This man, Mr. Patterson, had had children, a wife, and a cat that had prowled across Richard's shoes still slick with melted snow now, as they lay on his floor, wet dirt shining on the carpet. There was a photo of the family in his wallet that had fluttered to Richard's feet as he had stood on a path in the park, for no one could hear a gunshot there, and Patterson would not be found until morning.

As Richard had walked home he had glanced in houses where families sat with their children, maybe a dog, an aunt, a neighbor, chatting over tea or eggnog, the scene lit in glowing candles and framed by ice on the windowpanes. He had wondered again what his sister and father, aunts and uncles and cousins would be doing at Christmas, only a day or two away.

Now he sat pensive, poking rather dry cookies into his tea, making them somewhat edible, and looking out the window to the city graced with snow. He sipped the tea and put it back down, his gaze straying from the mug to the letter he'd been trying to write, with a shaking hand pressing pencil too hard on paper, the words coming haltingly and each one sounding painfully insincere. He tried to apologize, but apologies, while in order, didn't sound right. He wondered if they'd be angry when they got it. Perhaps Emma would. But his father, ever understanding, might not...

He continued to rewrite until the letter on the table sounded at last honest and halfway decent. Inquiries after family members and friends, a subtle joke only Emma would understand. He signed the bottom after a debated _Best,._

What would they _think_ of him now? Here he was at Christmas alone, after killing three men- three lives which when taken felt very different from those of German soldiers. He did not _have_ to be alone. He had come here to get lost, and now the decision was sounding more and more foolish when it crossed his mind, but he knew he couldn't have survived otherwise. He could very well have taken up a pen and written back sooner. He could have not let himself fall into obscurity, lighting his existence and continued presence in their lives with a letter even now and again. If he had done so, he might be visiting them now...

But he hadn't. Each day he had grown more estranged it felt just a bit worse, like slowly adding pressure to a cut. Now writing back felt like digging a nail into the cut, breaking half healed skin and letting blood eek out again.

He folded the letter into thirds and lit a candle. Slowly he dipped it into the flame, watched smoke unfurl from the blackened corner. The flame ate away at the paper and the kind words and hopes of reconciliation.

He could not see them again. He had changed himself, corrupted himself. He had heard it said that war did it to men, but the decisions to kill again and again he had made, and carried out.

Finally the burnt paper lay crumpled on the table.

He had been taught that Jesus had died on Good Friday for mans' sins. He also knew that taking the life of another ( _in war or not!?_ the question had begged, but it did not matter now) was a Deadly Sin. He was going to Hell for decisions made in a fog of regrets and frustration and melancholia. He would pay for them, and in that moment he wished it would be soon.

He stood and poured a glass of brandy. The pure soul who had been born on Christmas Day would die in the end, and suffer for the murders of three men, the killer a hundred dollars richer and more hollow and haunted than ever.


End file.
